Looking at the past .

Question

the light from the sun takes 8 minutes to reach earth . now just say light leaves the sun and its 12:00 pm on earth . it would be 12:08 pm by the time light gets to earth . so . . . if i see the light at 12:08 pm but the light was created at 12:00 pm wouldnt i be looking at something from the past?

Answer 1

Yep, the same with many stars, some of them might not have existed for thousands of years but we keep seeing the light

Answer 2

Certainly you are.You are looking to the past of the sun ( since 8 minutes ) If the sun exploded "for example" we won't know until 8 minutes passes.  

Answer 3

that's right!

and when you look at a star at night, you may be looking many years into the past because stars are many light-years away.

( A light-year is the distance it takes light to travel in a year.)

The more you think about it, the less significant the earth seems in the grand scheme of things.

Answer 4

if you could travel 2008 light years away (instantly) and use a super powerful telescope you could look back and see Jesus being crucified

does this mean that if you could travel a few hours in front faster than the speed of light you could see your self following you?

Answer 5

Yes you are looking into the past, for example there are certain stars in the sky witch we see that are not there, they have been gone for thousands or millions of years but it takes that amount of time for the image to reach earth.

Answer 6

To expand your grasp of that concept...

Anything we can see is due to light reflecting off it. This is then processed by the eye, a signal sent to the brain, and so on.

All of this takes time, even if only millionths of a second.

My point is that you will never look upon anything in this life that is current- actually the exact time/ moment that you look at it- you will always be viewing the past.

The further things are away, the longer it takes for the light to travel, so you will be looking at older and older things the further away you are looking.

Cheers!

Answer 7

We can now see galaxies more than ten BILLION light years away. That means that we are seeing them, not as they are now,but as they were ten billion years ago. Wow!

We are getting closer and closer to when the Universe first became transparent to light, a (relatively) short time after the big bang, and can now even study the early stages of galaxy formation.

Answer 8

Yes you would be looking at something in the past. It is all due to the speed of light which is 186,000 miles per sec. or 300,000 kms per sec. The sun is about 8,920,000 miles or 1,440,000,000 kms away from us so it takes roughly 8 minutes for its light to reach us. It is the same with any star we see in the sky, we are looking at the past because of the speed of light. Nothing can travel any faster.